What began as a dream in 1995, grew into a hypothetical in 2012 and sparked hope in 2015, became a reality on July 5, 2017 when the first person walked into Christian Healthcare Centers for the very first doctor visit in our history. Healthcare never felt more exciting as the prayers, hard work and God’s provision over these last four years resulted in opening the doors of the first Christian not-for-profit Direct Primary Care facility in the United States.

We were overwhelmed at our Open House on June 28 by the number of people who joined us to celebrate the official ribbon cutting. Over 300 people attended to tour our facility, meet our staff and share in our excitement. Fox17 News and WZZM News produced two excellent segments and the Christian radio station, WJQ99, provided a three hour live remote. It was a special day that announced the birth of a movement to bring the Church back to the forefront of healthcare and launch the creation of a distinctively Christian healthcare system.

Just as the birth of a newborn baby is a source of hope for the future, filling parents, grandparents and others with excitement and anticipation about the kind of person that little one will be, the birth of Christian Healthcare Centers marks a hope-filled new day for healthcare; care that is thoroughly Christ-centered, whole-person focused and Christian in every way. What makes healthcare “Christian” is its unwavering commitment to be life-affirming, from conception to natural death, to be compassionate, professionally competent and delivering services that are consistent with the values embodied in the person and redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

While politicians wrangle over how to pay for healthcare, Christian Healthcare Centers is focused on how we provide higher-quality, patient-focused healthcare. We are less interested in how practitioners get paid and are more concerned with keeping our members well. Our patient-centered medical home model doesn’t begin with government or an insurance company. It is grounded in the belief that God is the One who heals, and sometimes he uses a doctor. Christian Healthcare Centers is person-focused, not payment-focused. We believe quality healthcare does not have to be expensive but it should be accessible when the patient needs it. We believe Christian healthcare should care for the whole person, with spiritual wellness as its foundation.

On a personal note, the birthing of Christian Healthcare Centers draws on my passion to restore a biblical and moral foundation to the practice of medicine. I want Christian doctors and nurses to have a safe harbor where they can openly share their faith and provide (or not provide) services that conform to biblical teaching. After 33 years as a Christian medical ethicist, I have watched the moral decline of medicine and it has reached a point where a Judeo-Christian ethic is seldom welcome as a driving force behind public policy and medical practice. Thankfully, there remain many Christian physicians who push back against the downward trajectory of ethics in healthcare. Christian Healthcare Centers provides a safe harbor for the growing number of medical professionals whose careers are casualties of the moral decline. I hope you will share this part of the Christian Healthcare Centers’ mission.